Posted
on December 1, 2013
People
in Romania are celebrating the unification of Romanian provinces
into one nation today.
Transylvania
and two smaller regions joined together with Moldova and Wallachia
on this date in 1918 to make “Greater Romania”—which is why this
holiday is sometimes called “Great Union Day.”
Wait!
Transylvania?
Yes,
that Transylvania. The one we associate with vampires, thanks
to Bram Stoker's novel Dracula. (Of course such vampires and Dracula are fictional.)
There
is a gorgeous castle in Transylvania that is named Bran Castle but that is often
called Dracula's Castle. For no good reason, apparently; Dracula
author Stoker was inspired by a prince named Vlad the
Impaler as he wrote his fictional tale, but Vlad had no real
connection with Bran Castle, and Stoker himself had a locale in the Transylvanian Alps in mind for his fictional castle
for his fictional character! Still, I can understand how tempting it
is to lure tourists with the familiar name... Speaking of tourists, the tourists who visit Bran Castle can admire
the art and furniture collected by Queen Marie and can then go to the
open air museum outside the castle, where a traditional Romanian
peasant cottage, a barn, and other structures are on exhibit. |
| Transylvania is known for its beautiful scenery. |
One
thing that is unusual about Romania is that in 2005 its currency
radically changed. Four zeroes were dropped from the monetary unit,
which is called a leu. What would've cost 10,000 leu with the old money now cost
just one leu with the new, reduced-zero money. That must've taken some getting used to!
(Of
course, that didn't mean that everyone was suddenly rich! If a worker
was earning 300,000 old leu an hour, he started earning 30 new leu an
hour (which would be close to ten U.S. dollars an hour).
By
the way, it seems that Romania is taking steps to convert to the
euro. That would be another enormous shift in money matters within
just a decade!
Also
on this date:
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ahead:
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